Jane MacQuitty: Winemakers work better in teams

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Can co-operatives produce great wine? Increasingly, yes. Survival, not
plaudits, was all that the co-operative movement craved when it began in the
19th century. Saving dwindling groups of vignerons from destitution in poor
rural wine regions took a determined general manager, or board, who could
control the interests of hundreds of growers, encouraging them to work
collectively and more successfully. Germany embraced the co-operative wine
movement as early as 1868, Italy about the same time and both well before
France. A century later, Europe’s co-operatives were still struggling with
vine diseases such as phylloxera, oidium and mildew.